Amazon Reportedly Wins Exclusive Rights To Stream ATP Tour

Amazon has won exclusive rights to stream the ATP World Tour in the U.K., outbidding Sky Sports, according to the The Guardian.

Amazon Prime will stream nearly all of the elite men’s tennis events with the exception of the four grand slams, according to the newspaper. The contract includes the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 and Masters 500 events around the world.

Amazon become the rights holder and replace Sky Sports, which has a five-year contract set to expire in 2018.

A spokesperson for Amazon declined to comment or confirm the deal. A spokesperson from ATP said the company is “currently undergoing a tender process for the UK rights to the ATP World Tour beyond 2018,” but would not confirm The Guardian report.

This would be Amazon’s first major move to stream live sports outside of the U.S. The company earlier this year nabbed a contract from Twitter to livestream NFL games. That contract includes 10 Thursday Night Football games for the 2017 season.

The move comes amid a broad push by digital media companies to stream live events, especially sports, which remain popular even as people cancel expensive cable packages.

Last year, Bloomberg reported that Amazon was pursuing video rights to a wide range of sports, which included the French Open tennis championship and professional rugby.

Sharing

Tags

About Jen Booton

Jen is a senior writer at SportTechie covering the many ways technology is disrupting sports. On any given day she may cover a wide variety of stories ranging from the newest virtual reality training tools for the NFL, the rise of eSports leagues and the infiltration of drones in extreme sports. Prior to joining SportTechie, Jen was a technology reporter at MarketWatch, where she covered major Silicon Valley companies, such as Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook.
Jen is a licensed skydiver who jumps out of planes, helicopters and hot air balloons for fun in her spare time. She’s a former NCAA cross country athlete and currently lives in Hoboken, New Jersey.
View all posts by Jen Booton →